What is the benefit of learning in and graduating from a Competency-Based program?

As stewards of education, we engage in a contract with our communities implicitly ensuring learners in our schools emerge college, career and citizenship ready. In order to ensure that we are enabling graduate success, we must be explicit in how we measure student growth and learning. Competency-Based Education, that is driven by outcomes, supported by standards, the way we do the important work of ensuring our graduates are prepared and engaged. Competency-Based Education is not the need for the work, but rather the vehicle to ensure we are teaching and assessing what students need to be successful.

Aligning the learning experience with outcomes needed by our graduates is an important first step as educators begin to think about teaching and learning differently. As schools design and develop competency-based curriculum and content, they often call on the expertise of Rose Colby who has been moving the mountains of educational reform here in the State of New Hampshire and across the country inspiring classroom educators, school leaders and entire communities to improve learning outcomes through mastery-based learning.

When I first joined Motivis Learning in 2015, Rose graciously sat down with me for one of my first interviews to share some insight and answers to those most frequently asked questions in what ultimately became my blog series, From the Field.

In the years since that first interview, Rose has worked with countless schools across the nation as well as policy makers at the State and Federal level to transform learning in a big way. Her travels have brought her into contact with many “Imagineers of Education,” as she calls them, and the interactions and experiences have challenged her and helped to refine and evolve her strategies for working with schools in thier move to Competency-Based Learning.

With last year’s release of Rose’s much anticipated book Competency-Based Education: A New Architecture for K-12 Schooling, she sat down with Motivis once again to discuss the essential tasks necessary to transform learning. This 5 part interview series will focus on different aspects of her work spanning the last 10 years implementing CBE and new systems for learning across the country. We examine how designing for continuous improvement has shaped and evolved her view of CBE and the important role it plays in enabling student success.

In this fourth of five episodes, we will take a closer look at the vision of the new graduate and the essential role the needs of the graduate plays in designing and implementing successful Competency-Based Learning. For further information about our approach to CBE, click here.

Author: Emily Dustin

Emily Dustin, M.Ed., is Director of Education at Motivis Learning. She lends nearly two decades of educational excellence, as a classroom educator and school leader in K-12 and in Adult and Continuing Education. Emily works to create impact at scale in the design and implementation of product and curriculum resources for Motivis Learning with our partners in higher education.